Angler finds class ring man lost 21 years ago

By MATT WILLIAMS

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Joe Richardson's 1987 class ring created a national media blitz after it was reported that the ring was found in the belly of an 8-pound bass. The early reports weren't completely accurate, though the ring did appear to be spit up by the big fish.

Joe Richardson is an easygoing guy who typically enjoys a relaxed lifestyle. When his mind is not buried inside a diesel engine, he likes sitting on his back porch and watching deer nibble corn around his feeder, or using his tractor to perform odd jobs on his small, 28-acre farm in southeast Texas.

If Richardson's name sounds familiar, you might have heard it in the news recently. Shortly after Thanksgiving, the 41-year-old auto mechanic from Buna became the main course on a feeding frenzy orchestrated by the mainstream media.

The media blitz came after word got out that a fisherman had reeled in an 8-pound bass that was wearing the 1987 class ring Richardson had lost at Sam Rayburn Reservoir more than two decades ago -- inside its belly!

"It got pretty wild to the point that I finally quit answering or returning phone calls," Richardson said. "I did all kinds of radio and television interviews over the phone. I was even contacted by Good Morning America and the Early Show."

Initial recounts posted by the Associated Press, among others, told how Richardson had accidentally dropped his Universal Tech Institute of Houston graduation ring into the lake while on a fishing trip 21 years ago.

According to the AP story, the fisherman claimed he found the ring "inside an 8-pound bass." After discovering the ring, the fisherman found Richardson's name engraved on the inside of the band. With the help of the Internet, the angler (who initially requested anonymity) tracked down Richardson by cell phone and told him of the bizarre discovery. The men arranged to meet later that night in a Dairy Queen parking lot, where Richardson got back the ring his mother had warned him not to wear, because it was sized too big.

Richardson said he remembers the day he lost the ring well.

"I was standing on the bow of my friend's boat when I felt it slip off my finger," he said. "The ring hit the side of the boat then 'plop,' it fell in the water near Needmore Point. The water was too deep to dive for it. So I thought, 'Well, I'll never see that again.'"

I learned long ago that when a story sounds too good to be true, it usually is. But I decided to go fishing for some more answers about this big bass tale anyway.

Who was the nameless man who reeled in the ring-eating bass? How was the bass caught and what lure was used to catch it? Could someone please produce a picture of the fish?

Here's what I dug up.

The angler who reportedly caught the fish was 29-year-old Randall Koch of Vidor. Koch said he and his brother, Juston, were home on leave from the military over the Thanksgiving holiday. The men drove to Sam Rayburn to see their father's lake property the morning after Thanksgiving and decided to do some fishing later that afternoon. The two men were accompanied by Tom Watterson.

Koch said he caught the fish out of 8 feet of water near Needmore Point. His bait of choice was a Texas-rigged black/blue lizard. The angler said he fought the fish to the boat, but it jerked out of his hand just as it cleared the gunwale.

"The hook popped out of its mouth when it landed on the floorboard, and it started flouncing around all over the place," Koch said. "That's when Tom dove on top of it."

Watterson, who was sipping on a cold beer at the time, said he noticed a small object laying in the floor beside the fish when he raised up. He recalled it looking like a toy or something with a big green or blue head. Closer inspection revealed it was a ring.

"All of the other stories that came out in the news made it sound like we found the ring inside the bass' belly, but that was not what happened at all," Koch said. "We didn't actually see the ring come out of the bass' mouth, but how else could it have gotten into the boat?"

Koch threw out several possibilities that might be difficult for a savvy bass fisherman to bite on.

"Maybe the fish scooped it up when it hit the lizard. Maybe the hook grabbed the ring off the bottom about the same time I set the hook. Maybe the fish had swallowed the ring and spit it up when it hit the floorboard -- I don't know," Koch said. "But what I do know is I have never been scuba diving, and I don't own a metal detector. If I did have a metal detector, I sure wouldn't have been fishing around the bottom of the lake with it."

Curious to learn more about the ring, Koch said they used OFF! insect repellant to clean it. They eventually discovered the name "Joe Richardson" etched on the inside of the tarnished band.

Connecting a familiar finger to a mud-caked ring found at the bottom of a 114,000-acre lake might seem like an impossible task, but Koch claims they pulled it off fairly easily by using his brother's I-Phone and a handy Internet search tool called Zaba Search.

"We just started looking for Joe Richardsons in the area who fit the age of someone who might have graduated in 1987," Koch said. "We found him on the fourth or fifth call. It was a pretty amazing deal."

So amazing, in fact, that Richardson didn't believe any of it until he actually had the ring it his hand.

"I am a pretty skeptical person," Richardson said. "I honestly thought it was some sort of prank my buddies were pulling. I was skeptical about the whole deal all day long until they showed up in the Dairy Queen parking lot later that night and produced me the ring I had not seen in 21 years."

It is logical to assume that Koch might have had someone snap a picture of him holding the biggest bass of his angling career alongside Richardson's long lost ring, right?

He didn't.

"I've been in the Army for nine years, and I've taken about six pictures the whole time," Koch said. "We never even thought about taking a picture of the fish."

So what happened to the bass?

Randall Koch told me he released it before leaving the lake. Interestingly, that was not what Richardson and his wife, Lisa, understood the night the ring was returned.

"They told us they dropped the fish at a taxidermist somewhere between the lake and Buna," Joe Richardson said.

Koch contends the Richardson's misunderstood him amidst all the excitement.

"We joked with them about taking it to the taxidermist, but I really didn't want to kill the fish," he said. "I thought about having the bass mounted, but I really didn't have the money to pay for it and I really didn't have any place to keep it if I did."

If jewelry could talk, Joe Richardson's 1987 UIT class ring would surely have a good tale to tell. Richardson is just happy to have it back.

"It is kind of strange to get something back that has been missing so long," Richardson said. "The fact these guys went out of their way to return it really means a lot. They didn't have to do that, but they did. I'm very grateful for that."

Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.

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